John Lennon Remembered On 73rd Birthday

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Today (October 9) would have been John Lennon’s 73rd birthday. The deceased Beatle shared the occasion with his son Sean, who celebrates his 38th birthday today.

This afternoon, Yoko Ono will be on the island of Videy in Reykjavik, Iceland today for the annual lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower in honor of her late husband. She will light it at 4 p.m. ET, which is 8 p.m. in Iceland. You can check out the tower, which is a beam of light shooting straight up into the sky, tonight through December 8th, the day Lennon was killed in New York City, at ImaginePeaceTower.com.

On Lennon’s 40th (and final) birthday, he celebrated by releasing Starting Over, his first record in five years. Yoko Ono also hired a skywriter to draw “Happy Birthday John and Sean — Love Yoko” over New York City. Ten years earlier, John spent much of his 30th birthday in Studio Three of EMI Studios, Abbey Road, where he recorded Remember for the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album. Ringo Starr was featured on the backing track.

Since his passing in 1980, Lennon has been memorialized and remembered in different ways on his birthday.

On what would have been John Lennon’s 60th birthday, a photo of him was projected onto the side of a New York City building, while the words “peace” and “love” were written in the Manhattan sky. Also, Lennon’s half-sister, Julia Baird, planted an oak tree in his memory in Liverpool; a John Lennon Concert Square opened in Sicily, Italy; and an ice sculpture of Lennon was unveiled in Sydney, Australia.

In 2006 (Lennon’s 66th birthday), Yoko Ono revealed plans for a column of eternal light to be visible from the harbor of Reykjavik, Iceland. The following year, Ringo Starr and George Harrison’s widow, Olivia, attended the unveiling of Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace Tower on Videy Island, on what would have been John Lennon’s 67th birthday.

Lennon’s legacy and impact is eternal. Here are some of the tweets memorializing him on his birthday.

John Lennon was born on this day in 1940. See pictures of him in our current free Beatles/Stones exhibition: http://t.co/ooDcfz4rZa